Thanks for the Quality Family Time, Amtrak!

Here I am, on the train to Newport News, Virginia, with my family, going to visit my sister-in-law and her family. We could've (should've?) flown, but decided to save some money and give our kids a train experience by taking Amtrak.

 Unfortunately, I happen to despise Amtrak. I used to take the train from Boston to Philadelphia all the time back in college (20 years ago), and the damned train was almost always late. Then there was the time a woman committed suicide by jumping on the tracks; that was somewhere in Connecticut, and by the time I got into South Station it was almost 2 a.m.

My Amtrak track record (ha, pun intended!) got so bad that I finally switched to the Peter Pan/Greyhound bus. But I figured it's been 20 years, give 'em another chance, right? Yeah, not so much.

A two-hour delay later (on top of the eight-plus hour trip ahead of us) did nothing to change my opinion of Amtrak as something so broken it might never get fixed. But when we finally got on the train, it wasn't crowded. the seats were roomy and comfortable, the bathrooms didn't stink too badly, and the cafe car had plenty of wine. Greyhound doesn't sell wine.

 And then somewhere just south of D.C., I looked out the window--the afternoon sun was sparkling so prettily off of some Northern Virginia river that a lovely feeling of peace and contentment came over me. I had my family with me, we were on an adventure, the scenery outside my window was beautiful.

What more did I want? Did it really matter that we were two hours delayed? Of course not.

It Was 20 Years Ago....

Eddie Vedder, grunge's poster boy, in 1992.
Girls loved him, guys wanted to be him. 

When I heard that Pearl Jam was celebrating their 20th anniversary this month, one of the first things that popped into my head was, "It was 20 years ago today, when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play." Which really shows you how old I am.

I remember back in 1987, all the music critics were frothing at the mouth over the 20th anniversary of The Beatles' classic album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The DJs, VJs, and various talking heads played that snippet of the song--"It was 20 years ago today, when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play."--over and over (and over again).

In 1987, I remember thinking that 1967 seemed like a million, billion years ago--a time of flower people, free love, and chicks with hairy legs (versus my 80's world of Wall Street, neon, and big hair).

Not surprisingly, 1991 doesn't seem like THAT long ago. After all, I was already an adult twenty years ago. Going from being a young adult to an older one isn't nearly so monumental as going from being not born yet to a teenager. Youth warps one's sense of time--while you are growing up, it seems to be taking so damned long that even five years feels like an eternity, let alone twenty.

Yet my adulthood is speeding by--imagine that.

So I was blown away when I realized an entire two decades has passed since Pearl Jam and Nirvana (not to mention Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, and Alice in Chains) broke out and changed the landscape of rock 'n' roll forever. These awesome bands also convinced us to replace our boxy, Stop Making Sense-ian, shoulder-padded blazers and high-waisted designer jeans with plaid flannel shirts and ripped Levi's.

And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Awful Song Lyrics: Duran Duran Edition

The same way awesome lyrics can turn a good song into a great one, awful lyrics can ruin a perfectly decent tune. If I truly adore a song's melody then horrible lyrics won't make me hate it, but I do get mad that the artist has gone ahead and ruined a great song by giving it stupid words.

This poster was on my bedroom wall in 1983.

The exception is Duran Duran. DD songs have some of the most asinine lyrics out there, yet I've never gotten angry about it. The ridiculous words fit somehow when it comes to the pop band whose pictures once covered my bedroom wall.

While in the car earlier today, I flipped the radio station to 95.5 PLJ (which I rarely listen to, but ever since 101.9 RXP went soft-rock, my choices are limited). "New Moon on Monday" by DD was on, and before I knew what was happening, I heard myself bellowing: "I light my torch and wave it for the new moon on Monday/and the fire dance through the night./I stayed the cold day with a lonely satellite."

What the hell? I thought. I mean, really, how meaningless and dumb and awful are those lyrics? And why has my brain continued to devote a whole bunch of cells to remembering them 28 years later?

Here is the video for "New Moon on Monday," from their 1983 album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger (the title of which doesn't make any sense either):

And here are some of the dumbest lyrics ever written for a hit song:

New Moon on Monday

Shake up the picture, the lizard mixture

With your dance on the eventide.

You got me coming up with answers

All of which I deny.

I said it again, but could I please rephrase it?

Maybe I can catch a ride.

I couldn't really put it much plainer

But I'll wait till you decide.

Send me your warning siren

As if I could ever hide.

Last time La Luna

CHORUS:

I light my torch and wave it for the

New moon on Monday

And a fire dance through the night.

I stayed the cold day with a lonely satellite.

Breaking away with the beast of both worlds

A smile that you can't disguise.

Every minute I keep finding

Clues that you leave behind.

Save me from these reminders

As if I'd forget tonight.

This time La Luna

CHORUS

FYI, "Union of the Snake," the first hit song off Seven and the Ragged Tiger also has idiotic lyrics. Pretty much all of Duran Duran's songs are dumb. But they are still awesome.

Bus Stop Mamas

I was preoccupied all day--my mind wandering while driving, barely hearing my daughter prattle on, etc.--and it was because of something so totally insignificant and stupid. There are days when I'm amazed at how pathetic I am, and today was one of them.

First, a little background: I am way too insecure for someone my age. Seriously, aren't we supposed to "come into ourselves" in our 30's, and then by our 40's be effortlessly self-confident and radiating inner beauty? That's what Eileen Fisher would have us believe, but for me, unfortunately, it hasn't quite happened that way. Oh, sure, I'm less insecure about my appearance nowadays, but that's mainly because I'm old enough to realize that's a battle I'm not going to win.

Nor am I still insecure about what the hell I'm doing with my life, because I ended up getting married, having kids, and quitting my job to raise them--and I'm good with that. Sure, there are days I wonder what it would be like to go to an office everyday and contribute creatively and intellectually to society while a full-time nanny takes care of my kids, but it's not something I actually want. I don't regret the path I've chosen.

I am, however, insecure about my friends--or rather, lack thereof. And it's confusing to me because for most of my life, having and making friends came naturally and easily. Growing up, I didn't even think about it--friends just popped up wherever I went. I used to consider myself something of an Alpha Female--I was usually a leader amongst my various groups of friends.

But as I got older, things changed. Throughout my 20's and 30's, my number of female friends dwindled--people married, moved away, got jobs that left little time for socializing, etc. And because I was no longer making new friends left and right, pretty soon I was down to a precious few. Then I had my own kids and moved to the suburbs where I knew almost no one.

I've been trying to make new friends since we moved here five years ago, but because I've never had to actively pursue friendships before, I am pathetic at it. I've become good friends with about four mothers (in five years--sad), but then two of them moved away. The other two don't even live in our town.

Which is why my current best friend is my 3-year-old daughter.

So, yes, I'm a little fragile when it comes to friends.

For the past two weeks, I've been waiting at the bus stop with a few neighborhood moms. Two of them seem like they could be potential friends but I'm just so clueless when it comes to taking it to the next level. After the bus has come and gone, instead of staying to chat I just say goodbye and head home.

Well, shortly after the bus had picked up my son this morning, I was back at home reading my daughter a book. I looked out the window and saw the two moms I like pushing strollers down the street (they both have young kids) and taking a walk together. They were chatting like old friends, though I know they pretty much met at the bus stop, too.

I instantly felt like the biggest loser. Why not me? Don't they like me? Is it because they both have two boys and both their second sons are still young enough to be taken for a walk in a stroller? If my daughter were still stroller age would I have been included as well? 

I spent all morning wallowing in self-pity and feeling like the greasy-haired, zit-faced girl at the junior prom that no one will ask to dance.

9-11-01: What I Remember

With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 just a few days away, it's impossible to watch the local news, listen to the radio, or read the paper without encountering something about that fateful day.

I don't much like hearing, reading, talking, or even thinking about that horrific event. I lived on 12th Street at the time, just a couple of miles from Ground Zero, so any reminder of the attack brings back awful memories. Thankfully none of my friends or family died that day, but living in the midst of such tragedy was still a terrible thing.

In those days if the weather was good, my habit was to walk to work, and on that fateful Tuesday morning, it was gorgeous: one of those late summer days with dry, crisp, clean-smelling air, a cloudless cobalt-blue sky, and a bright, cheery sun. The kind of weather that can't help but put you in a good mood.

I arrived at our nearly-empty office at around 9 a.m. As I walked to my cubicle, a young temp informed me that an airplane had just crashed into one of the Twin Towers. I looked over her shoulder at the frightening images on her computer screen, then ran to my desk and logged onto CNN.com. What a horrible, tragic accident! I thought. It was obvious that all of the people on the airplane must be dead, as well as dozens (if not more) who were working on those tower floors that suffered a direct hit.

I was listening to reports of fires in the tower and trying to process the horror of it all, when the news flashed across my screen: Another airplane had just hit the second tower. What?! A shiver ran down my spine as I realized what this meant. One hit could've been an accident but not two. By this point the office was full, and everyone was freaking out.

We ran to the conference room, where the office's only TV was located, and watched the disturbing images being shown: two airplanes sticking out of the World Trade Center; black smoke billowing from the towers; soot-covered emergency personnel running in and out of the buildings; people high up in the towers, standing at broken windows and waving white towels (spare dress shirts?), desperate to be rescued from the fires licking at their backs.

Then the TV showed something tiny falling from a tower...down, down, down. Oh, no, no, NO, it's a person! I couldn't look anymore--I covered my eyes and cried.

Then the towers fell, one after another, and the enormity of the event truly hit me. What at first appeared to be a horrible and tragic accident was officially now an evil, hate-filled, world-changing, never-to-be-forgotten, add-it-to-the-textbooks, hellish, historical attack.

I took this photo from the roof of my building on 9-11.

I walked home later that day, showing my I.D. to get past the police barricade at 14th Street, went up to the roof of my building, and looked South. Smoke. After watching the images on TV for hours, seeing the actual thing was surreal.

I didn't think things could get any worse, but they did. I lived two blocks from St. Vincent's, which was designated the primary admitting hospital for those injured in the attacks. Extra doctors and nurses were summoned, extra supplies gathered, but hardly any wounded arrived. Empty stretchers awaited bodies that never materialized--bodies that, as it turned out, were vaporized.

But people with missing loved ones flocked to the hospital anyway, just in case. A huge chain-link fence outside the hospital was soon covered with MISSING!! notices: sheet after sheet of Xeroxed, 8-1/2 x 11 pages showing the smiling faces of people who, we were beginning to realize, were gone. Every single one of the hundreds of faces staring back at me as I walked by were blown to bits. Their bodies would never be found...their loved ones would never be able to close a casket, bury a body, or visit a gravestone.

The Xeroxed notices lingered for weeks. They got mangled a little, wrinkled and ripped by the rain, they faded. But still the smiling faces stared out at me. I couldn't stop thinking about them--they haunted me.

But the worst was the smell. The acrid, burning stench was there 24/7. I closed my windows but could still smell it. For weeks I went to bed with the smell in my nostrils and woke with it still there. It got to the point where I couldn't remember what regular air even smelled like. I rode the subway all the way uptown but the smell followed me. I think if I ever encounter that particular stench again, I'll throw up on the spot.

I don't remember how long the smell lasted, because my attention soon was diverted by the Anthrax scares that were popping up all over Manhattan. People were also talking about the "very real possibility" of a subway bombing. Things were weird and SCARY for a long time.

What the reflecting pools will look like

Now ten years have passed and it seems like a lifetime ago. I don't like to remember because then I begin to think, hey, if it happened once, it probably will again. But last weekend after spending time at a cool, new downtown playground, we drove past the WTC site at the request of my son, who is obsessed with skyscrapers. It pretty much looks like any other construction site--except way bigger--and I was surprised to not feel much about it.

I do want to go back once the reflecting pools are completed, however. I think they will be beautiful and meaningful, and hopefully they'll bring some peace to those who lost a loved one that day. We can only hope.

I'm Not Ready to Say Goodbye to the Trucks, Dinosaurs, Skyscrapers & Dragons

I didn't think I was stressing too much about my son starting Kindergarten next week--okay, maybe a little about the bus picking him up at 7:49 a.m. (so early!), and also about having to pack him a lunch and snack everyday...but not about the idea of him going to Kindergarten. I've been handling that just fine, thank you. 

One of the Empire State Buildings I
found in the Ariel notebook

Or so I thought. But then I noticed something strange. Earlier this evening, I picked up a little Ariel notebook my daughter received as a favor from a birthday party--I wanted to jot something down--and when I opened it, there were pages and pages of sketches my son had made: multiple Chrysler Buildings, Empire State Buildings, and Eiffel Towers. Seeing them there so unexpectedly made me gasp, and I found it hard to breathe. I quickly flipped past the drawings to a blank page and cleared my head so I could jot down my note. 

My son loves to draw, so I'm used to finding his little masterpieces all over the place: on the back of the notepad meant for phone messages, on the pieces of cardboard that come inside new tights and socks, on the backs of receipts. In my nightstand drawer, crumpled up at the bottom of the Lego box, under the car's driver seat.

I've always adored coming across them. It's fun to figure out when they were drawn. A truck? Age two. Volcano? Three. Velociraptors and skyscrapers are from when he was four, and dragons are his current passion. 

But that seems to have changed. The drawings I found in the Ariel notebook tonight aren't the first ones that have left me short of breath. It's been happening for the past few weeks. I think it's because my son is growing up so fast, and whenever I find one of his drawings, it makes me wonder how much longer I'll have this pleasure. It's inevitable: The day will come when I no longer find his random sweet sketches all over the house. I can hardly bear to think about it...it makes me cry every time.

He's going to Kindergarten, he's getting older. My little boy is growing and changing, which means our relationship is going to change, too. And while I know that's a healthy thing, it also just happens to break my heart.